


his Name was Karkat, and his Heart was yours

by Royalrastafariannaynays



Series: Wildbloom [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blind Character, Dave and Rose are Witches, Dragons, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Magic, POV Dave Strider, also some sad towards the end i think i might include but im not sure, and for happiness, dave just wants to have so much more freedom than he does, he yearns for it, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 20:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12967848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Royalrastafariannaynays/pseuds/Royalrastafariannaynays
Summary: It's sometime in the 17th century, maybe, when Dave leaves a larger town with his sister, Rose, and moves to the growing city of Edinburgh. And it's there that he meets someone whose impact on his life will be far from negligible. He's blind, but this man, he can see.He can see him so well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey! this is a little side fic i wanted to write on how dave and karkat met in my rosemary witch au, Gardenia and Peonies! enjoy:)

The streets of Edinburgh were just developing when you and Rose got there. It was an old town, and it had so far to come yet. 

Rose bought a room for the both of you to stay in, with two beds, situated above a shoe shop. The sounds of the cobblestones, and the horses clopping to and fro, and the notion of a busting market nearby, all piqued your interest. 

“Don’t wander off without your bearings, Dave,” Rose said. “And watch out. I haven’t set up a spell yet for us.” 

Ah... right. 

Rose was talking about the way that folks up here viewed people with darker skin. 

“Yeah,” you replied, and felt around for a bag to lift. 

The handles stuck out from the side of the carriage, right where you thought they would be. And you gently pulled until your luggage came loose. Two trunks between you, and one bag that Rose carried with her always, with the money. Rose handled the money, always the responsible one. 

“Hey Rose,” you asked, listening as she pressed coins into the driver’s hand. “You think I could get a job here?” 

“Well,” she said, and you furrowed your brow while waiting for a response. Carry the stuff around the back, not the side with the horse.

You don’t like horses. 

Camels were much better. Hardier, easier to know where they were due to the more prominent stink. Unfortunately. And no camel had ever knocked you on the head with its chin. Maybe spat on you, yeah. But none of that hurting for a laugh business. 

Okay, yeah. Back to the task at hand. 

Asking Rose if you could get a job.

Since she was essentially your keeper. You always hated that part. 

Rose hadn’t wanted you to get a job in the previous city, citing your blindness and magical development needs. It was easy to live with Ro there, anyway. And you still know Rose. She’ll insist that you work on your magic more, so that you can see better. Or that the both of you work in the same place. 

Well, even that would be preferable to honing a skill that she was much better at than you. 

Magic is a tricky thing. Rose was given a Gift of superior magical ability. Her spells come easily to her, and her visions and Sights are acute and accurate. At some strain to her body, yes. And a few times you’ve heard her whispering dangerous things at night. But you? 

Your best trick was that you could change the color of your hair. 

Well, that might be underrating yourself. 

The best trick is that you could sometimes use your magic to see. Like a normal person. 

A vendor shouts down the street. Something about fish. 

The sheer scarf around your eyes slid down a little, and you adjusted it. 

The scarring on your face could be frightening to others who hadn’t seen it before. The scar tissue from the burns was pale pink and gray, and it puckered and swayed around eyes blank and white. 

“I don’t see why not,” Rose said, finally. You whipped up your head right quick, as the sound of her shoes carried her closer to you. Shoes too expensive, maybe, for this town. But you didn’t know how big the town was. Wasn’t it some kind of city? Wasn’t there a castle there? 

“I can get a job?” you asked, shocked. Rose’s clothes rustled as she bent down to pick up one handle of her trunk, to drag it over to the shoe shop. 

“Yes. Maybe as a mason of some sort?” she wondered aloud. “You always had a knack for stonework. Might be your affinity for time. Or maybe a bell ringer, for the cathedral down the way.”

Standing up straight, you spun around on the street, as if you’d be able to see it if you just turned fast enough. “A cathedral?!” you exclaimed, letting your excitement get away from you. 

Rose laughed. She knew you always liked the church just down the street from Auntie Ro’s home. It smelled good in there, like spices and smoke. And the sound of the soft praying of the parishioners, and the incantations of Sunday’s singing mass… it was lovely. Music is your favorite thing. And they never turned you away, no matter your eyes or the state of your clothes. 

And something about your eyes and your silence made them leave you be, for the most part. It had been a very welcoming place, for you.

“What a child,” she teased you. 

She didn’t mean to, but the chastising lessened your immediate excitement. 

Your face fell back into a soft blank look, and you prepared to round back on the luggage, to take it up the stairs. Rose walked away from you, and you heard the ringing of a shop door’s bell. Right, you’d be living above a shoe shop. And she’d be working there. As a clerk? 

How did she even get that job? 

Or the room? 

Someone bumped into you, and made you drop your trunk. 

The man that transported you and your sister giddied his horses up instead of helping, and that sound moved away. But the person who bumped into you… 

“Oh shite,” you heard, a rough curse that boiled in your ear and ground on your senses like the smooth stones at the bottom of a creek. 

“‘Scuse,” you muttered, trying to pinpoint the source of that voice. Not really caring enough to truly try. They would move on, like the rest did.

Then, someone bumped into that person, and that person bumped into you, again. And you tripped backwards over your things and toppled into the street.

Fuck. 

“Watch where you’re going, you half-witted piece of animal refuse!” the voice said, this time much farther above you than before. And directed away from you, so far as you could tell. 

Not too bad, all things considered.

You were reaching out a hand to try to find some purchase, when it spoke again. 

“My apologies, do you need help - oh.” 

And in your search for purchase you found the scarf from your eyes on the ground. Well. 

“Ah yeah, I’m fuckin’ blind,” you told him.

And he grabbed your extended wrist, to pull you up. 

It was very like you to accept help from strangers. 

But instead of just a hand up, something happened when your skin touched his. 

It was like two planets collided. 

An explosion of the sense of ethereality and strength emanated from him. His nails nearly pricked the skin of your palm as he hoisted you easily back to standing. They were... sharp. And the texture of his skin… it wasn’t quite right. 

Nothing of humanity came from him, except the shape of his palms and fingers, and the sound of him trying to talk to you again. But, as Rose was constantly reminding you, you had no barrier to speak of between your thoughts and your constantly running mouth.

“You’re… very old,” you said. 

He went so, so quiet in that moment. 

If he was magic, he would hear the magic in your voice, the magic that was telling you down to the second, just how old he was. And he would see it in your eyes as you whispered a spell to send images of him to your brain, so that you might know what he looked like. 

With your sight temporarily restored, you could see that his nose was long, his hair dark and bushy. Eyes shaped like the gentle sides of a rowboat, and brows so angry and out of control they might as well be fire. 

And he narrowed his eyes at you, David, as you gaped, overwhelmed with the sight of sharpened teeth and horns and great big wings, floating just behind him like a shadow on the daytime sky. Smoke poured from its mouth, and it snarled at you, letting you know that you had waded too far into its privacy. 

And so you withdrew. 

When you leaned back, he gasped softly. 

It was a long few moments before either of you did anything else.

His breath was like brimstone and the things that whisper to you when you do spells. His presence was magnetic, warm.

“Speak of me to no one,” he told you, leaning forward to whisper it into your ear. “Or that day will be your last.” 

Unsurprisingly, when he left, you were both blushing and terrified. 

Also unsurprisingly, you wasted no time in telling Rose over a dinner of fresh meat pies.


	2. Chapter 2

Perhaps worse than the dreams where you’re being chased, where you’re subjected to horrors… worse than those dreams of handing Rose a cup of tea, as she sits too gingerly in a silken chair. Worse than remembering her arms being lined with bruises you can barely see past the darkness of her skin. 

Worse than those dreams of watching her limp from your sire’s room after taking your beatings as well as hers; and so much more awful than the first time you saw her eyes go white with the inky black magic she toys with. The images that show you Rose coming into your quarters in the middle of the night, skirts stained crimson. The images that make you relive coals being dashed across your eyes, again and again, while you sob and sob and beg forgiveness.

More awful than all of that... are the dreams where it’s sunset, you’re in the clouds...

And you can see.

And you can _fly_.

Those dreams - they’re so much worse, because you always wake up.

* * *

The bell tower was old, and smelled like must even if there was no dust or rot to be found. 

Surprise, surprise, you got the job in the bell tower! It didn’t pay much, but you enjoyed the work nonetheless. Enjoyed the work you could get, and the job you were permitted now to have outside of the house. 

You managed to land the work, and with no persuasion magic, either. Lo and behold! All you had to do was quote some verses from their Good Book. Verses you had committed to heart, because you’d hear them all the time at the church you used to go to. 

The Father or whatever here said it was great news, because their old bellringer recently got sick anyway and wasn’t expected to return. One of those illnesses you just don’t get over, you guess. But it opened something up for you, where they needed a guy in a pinch to be able to do the long hours in exchange for pretty meager pay and a good hot meal in the area where the altar boys grab their food. 

And three nuns. 

The nuns didn’t like you. They didn’t think much about the color of your skin, or the fact that you weren’t otherwise a member of any clergy or anything. 

The monks you encountered, on the other hand, were usually pretty cool. They didn’t say much to you, and neither you to them. It worked out. They looked at your eyes, your kindness and your amiable attitude, and they accepted you. It was fortunate. 

The bad part was how much all of them loved to talk about sin.

That’s something you could have lived without. 

Anyways. 

Within the first month, you proved that you were absolutely excellent with time. 

You were the bell ringer every hour for most of the waking day. You got there with the dawn and left with the sun, too. Rain or shine. You had to walk home in the dark, which wasn’t great, but. 

Sometimes you were able to hang your head out the window. And you could see so much. 

The carts noisily traveling below. The smell of the wind changing. The light from the sun against your blind eyes. And the sound of the river, and the people along it.

* * *

One day, you went into work, and noticed that you were being followed upstairs. No one did that, not even the father or the boys. By then, you’d learned to use magic to ascend, to not hit your head. 

But at the last step, your follower smacked their forehead against the low hanging door frame. 

You turned to them. 

“Why are you following me? I have no money,” you said, and right after you said it, you sensed him. Oh. 

It was the dragon. 

His atmosphere was ashy, his voice like he never talked to anyone, that day. 

“My kind is rare these days,” he said, by way of explanation. You frowned. “And this city is fairly hidden.”

“Why should I care?” you asked, not intending to receive an answer. “Don’t follow me like this.”

Normally, you wouldn’t mind. But you had a job to do, and he was impeding it. 

“I told you not to speak to anyone,” he said, demanding and stepping into the room before you. “But you’re compensating keeping your mouth closed by following me?” His voice is urgent, angry. But… 

“What?” you asked, confused. 

“You work here. Across the street from the glass shop I own,” he said angrily. If there were fire licking from his mouth, you wouldn’t’ve been surprised. 

“And?” You were... honestly confused.

“You think I’m a fool?” he snapped. 

“It’s… just a coincidence?” you said, unsure of the tone you should take. But since you did no wrong, it felt like you could start prepping things for work. The birds were beginning to sing. That was your cue. 

A solar clock deep within your person chimed like a gong, and you reached up to ring the first bell. 

Karkat made an unhappy noise as you ignored him, gnashing his fangs and spitting a little.

Once you were done with the morning bell, you turned to Karkat. 

“How could I follow you?” you asked him, simply. “I can’t even see.” 

Karkat was silent. For a very long moment.

“You have proven to me that you can see.”

“Only when I actively choose to?”

“And?” Karkat was… paranoid. It was kind of really funny. It made sense, sure. You thought dragons were a myth yourself, because they’re so rare. Long lived and widely hunted in the middle ages, surely.

“And I wouldn’t use it to specifically choose somewhere to work just to stalk a guy I only met once and have no interest in besides like ‘oh fuck dragons are real sis!’” you teased him, waving your hands around like you were telling some insane story. Karkat huffed very deliberately, very obviously unamused.

“You told your sister?”

“Uh yeah. We’re witches.” 

Karkat was quiet again.

“So that’s how you saw me,” he murmured. You only just heard it. He sounded like he was telling himself just to sound less crazy. But he definitely didn’t sound less crazy. He was probably actually legitimately mad.

“Yeah.”

There was another, more poignant silence. Karkat paced the floor once, then twice. You sat down, and tried to flip on your eye magic to see him. He was wearing a heavy smock. So the glass-blowing thing was true. 

“You’re hiding just like I am,” he eventually admitted. 

“Yes.”

“It seems I’ve made a fool of myself,” he said, very determined in tone. And then he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi this chapter was written in a single sitting and has not been edited, so pardon me!!! i hope yall liked this other little piece, and i should be updating gardenia and peonies within a week! things have been a little crazy for me but i love yall so im trying! 
> 
> i hope everyone has a good evening!


	3. Chapter 3

Rose had managed to make a pretty good spell that could keep the two of you hidden. It was something with a complicated braid of herbs and fresh wheat. Something a little sour in its feel, but it did the job. Your identities were protected, then, from the more harmful Christians in the town. City. Something. 

After a couple of months, the two of you had settled into a routine of sorts. 

Rose would rise first in the day, to the sound of the bells. She would put on the kettle, starting up the fire, and pull out some bread, cheese and fruit for breakfast. Once the tea was ready, she would wake you, and then hand you your breakfast. Sometime in the second month, you had gotten a more official set of clothes from the cathedral. Not quite clergy, not quite anything else. A nun had handed it to you. So after you would eat your breakfast, and Rose would wave you in the direction of your trunk, you would dress and head out for work. 

Except on the Sabbath, of course. They’d had an official member of the church do that day. Besides, on the Sabbath, you would sleep in. And then you and Rose (who was also off work) would practice magic. She would claim you were making progress, and you would complain about thework.

And that was that.

One night, after three months in the town, something you’d been dreading happened. 

You’d just left the cathedral, heading down the road toward the place you now called home. And behind you rang out a shout. 

The voice was loud, wavering, and followed by a hiccup. A drunk, then. There were two other voices, as well, and they struck dread into you almost instantly.

Mostly because they were yelling… cruel things.

One of them reprimanded the way you walk. 

One of them talked about how you were an outsider. He had a few names to go with that, names you don’t like to repeat. 

The last, the first one to speak, was calling you a cripple. Something about being blind, about stealing your cane that you use to find steps and stairs when you’re out and about. About ripping your eye cloth off in front of the church you work at, to let God see what a hopeless thing he’d made. 

Of course they’re all things you’d heard before.

From your father. 

But they told you something.

That these men should be avoided at all costs.

In that day, when you were young and strong, you could have taken them. With a combination of magic and strength from tolling the bells. It would have been hard, though. 

So you walked faster. 

And they started jogging after you. You could hear their footsteps increasing as yours did. It made your panic rise, made your eye magic rise up. Everything was foggy, red, vague, but at least you wouldn’t be tripping. 

Just when you were thinking of breaking out into a sprint…

You sensed a presence by your side. 

It almost tripped you, with the surprise, and you choked as a hand clapped you on the back. 

The footsteps behind you stopped closing in. There was confused and annoyed muttering from the previously raucous trio. 

“A bit dangerous walking home alone at night, isn’t it?” A new voice chimed in. And. Christ alive. “For someone with vision as piss-poor as yours?” 

The crackling tone sent relief gushing through your body. 

You found yourself laughing uneasily. “You piss on the poor?” 

Karkat snorted, and you swore you smelled hot embers before a croaking laugh fell from the corners of his mouth. 

“Revolting,” is all he said. 

But apparently had thought that it was so funny, that he turned to the people who were now just following you, and shouted. 

“Go piss off on the poor, you jackals.” 

It carried a wave of practically visible intimidation, that made them go slow, silent, and stop. They didn’t follow you around the next corner, to your awesome relief. After that, you turned off your magic, letting yourself try to relax, and listening to Karkat’s steps to ‘see’ obstacles. 

Karkat spent the rest of the walk to your home talking about nothing in particular. His voice alone was soothing to your still-alerted nerves, and you replied occasionally, but to no real end. He stopped just before the door. 

“Thanks,” you told him. 

Briefly, you wondered what he looked like in the moonlight. 

Like, what he actually looked like. 

Not just the sallow and half-tinted version of him that you could make for yourself. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Karkat said, and patted you on the shoulder before starting back in the opposite direction. He must have lived over his shop, too. 

But. 

_Why does he care if one witch gets beaten up in the dark, here in town?_

Your mouth opened before you could have possibly stopped it, and you shouted after him. 

“Where are you from, anyhow?” you asked. 

Karkat stopped in his tracks. He turned to look over his shoulder at you, silent. Silence rang on the street, but for the sound of a cow lowing in its pen. 

“Himalaya is what they call it now, at least a bit further down south” he said. Bland and blunt and honest. Cool. “A land high up in the mountains, in the very far east.”

“Africa,” you told him, by way of offering your own information. 

Karkat was quiet again, for a bit. 

“Thanks,” he said. 

Mentally you kicked yourself for providing information where it hadn’t been asked of you.

But once you waved him off, and you got inside, you sat on the floor. Score. 

Making friends with at least one person in the new town? 

Check. 

\----------

The next morning, when you slouched your way into the bell tower, you found something unusual. 

A little glass bird sitting on the sill of the window .

Huh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howdy! a bit short, my apologies haha, but i felt like writing a little on it, hope everyone is having a good weekend, love yall!


	4. Chapter 4

In the next several days after that, Karkat walked you home. Sometimes, he held your upper arm, like Rose used to do before you learned to “see.” His hands were always warm compared to your thin form, and sometimes you swore you could feel claws on the other side of your cotton shirt. 

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Those months grew a friendship between the dials of the calendar. Rose said nothing of the man who would walk you home, though once, you heard them exchange some words once you were inside. 

Rose thanked him, and he said that it wasn’t a problem. Rose asked what he was, and he told her that the common term for it was “dragon,” something you had been made aware of some time before. Rose was quiet, and you could feel a surge of her power creep toward the base of the outdoor stairwell, where she stood.

It was hard not to listen, not to hear, and you stopped at the jamb. 

“I mean him no harm, truly,” Karkat said. “Immortals should be friends, after all.” 

Rose was quiet again, and you sensed her threat dissipate. She was powerful, power nearly spilling over the edge of her soul with every spell. A simple creature would have felt as much.

The quiet stretched, and stretched. And you knew what she would say next. 

Already you had begun to look older than her, just a little every year. 

“What?” Karkat asked, and you heard his feet scuff the ground. “You two are what you are, after all.” 

“Dave is mortal.” 

Rose’s voice was very sad. It was always sad, when she did that. There was a good reason neither of you ever discussed it, as you two together grew older every year, and only you had new wrinkles to show for it. On the eve of that conversation, you were in your mid-twenties? 

“I am not,” Rose finished. For a moment, it seemed as if she’d completed your sentence for you. “But Dave will continue to age. I have Seen it.” 

Karkat hushed, in his next words, and you finally stepped through the door. Away from the conversation, away from the dissertation of your own mortality. It was depressing, frankly. Extremely. 

Shortly after you went inside, Rose followed. Karkat’s boots tapped as they retreated down the brick of the street, and you stood there before the fire. Beyond that moment, he would pity you. Other magical beings always did, when they heard that you had a timeline. Except for John, but he’d been around so long, existence was impossibly fleeting. 

“Why did you tell him?” you asked Rose. Rose didn’t audibly stiffen, nor did she gasp, or recoil. She only sighed. So she’d known you were there, overhearing. Did Karkat, as well? 

“I’m sorry, Dave,” she replied, and you slammed your fist into the table. Looking up at her, you felt your lip curl into a desperate snarl. 

“You always tell!” you hissed at her. “Can I not have agency over one thing?!”

Rose was so quiet, then. As if she hadn’t yet realized why you hated it, every time she told someone. She knew about the pity they gave you, but she still did it. She knew that they were more likely to be gentle with you, more likely to protect you. That’s why she did it. 

“Blast your concern!” you snapped, and swung your abandoned pack back up onto your shoulder. You didn’t need to sleep, and you didn’t need her here as a constant reminder that you would always be weaker, and that you would always be dying. 

“Dave, please,” she said, and you pushed past her, past the sound of her voice. As an afterthought, you tore the blind from your face and dropped it behind you as the door closed, very nearly on your fingers. 

She knew you would be back in the morning, like always. It was near impossible for you to survive on your own, without her. But for that night, you would have your space. Your facsimile of independence. 

The cobblestones knocked together as you walked down the street, toward the woods, toward the sounds of the river and the night animals. A crow landed on your shoulder just as you hit the forest. For some reason, you didn’t cast it off. It stayed there, as your pace slowed, as the night air bit at your ears and fingertips. It ruffled its feathers, nibbled at your ear and nose, but you kept on. Too angry to put on your Sight, you barrelled noisily into the trees.

Feeling out with your arms and your cane, you stepped over twig and leaf. Roots, miraculously, did not hobble you. Branches, somehow, did not strike your face. Bushes didn’t trip you, and animals did not come for you or cross your path.

And the crow stayed on your shoulder. 

When you had not yet reached the river, you felt yourself walk into a clearing. The moon was almost a tangible feeling on your cheeks as you looked up toward her. 

The crow on your shoulder squawked, shouting loudly into your ear, and in the blackness of your sight, suddenly… there was someone. A figure, shaped like a human, but not a human. It wasn’t the moon, for she never visited a witch as simple as you. It wasn’t the forest, because she had better things to do. It was bright, beautiful, and everywhere it cast light, you could see the relief of the forest.

A tree spirit. It came forward, and it became a little less blurry. 

“This bird will be your night guardian, in my wood,” she said, and then.

“Take care of your soul, that is my price.”

She Disappeared. 

The crow cawed again, and everything was nothing to see once more. 

It wasn’t the first time something like this happened. Rose said it was because of your blindness, that they favored your lack of sight to come to you in times of stress. She said that the charm you wore around your neck, the ring of vines with the thorns protruding at seven places, was a blessed thing. 

Of course, you would need to be careful. Spirits loved to play tricks. Tree spirits tended to be kind, but you could never be too careful.

Shaking your head, you reached up to brush a finger across the bird’s fluffy chest. It tapped its beak on your nail, and crowed yet again. Noisy bird. 

No matter the cost, or the danger of allowing the deal to be made, you once more began to walk. The forest floor turned to a dirt path beneath your heels, and the trees swallowed the quiet of the clearing within seconds. 

In minutes you arrived at the river. It was an easy path, the walk nearly smooth. The crow was quiet next to you, and every few seconds would make a small noise, like a chattering of sorts. The first thing your hands found to sit on was the base of an old, gnarled tree. From some probing with your cane, you could feel its roots curling all over the surrounding grass. 

The crow said nothing when you sat in it, even made a noise that sounded like an affirmative. 

Despite not seeing the moon, you could feel it was nearing the middle of the night. The next day, you would have no work, as it was the Sabbath for the Christians. So you could spend time here, basking in the sun, taking a short nap, maybe. And that spirit would keep you safe. 

Maybe this was her tree. 

In your mind’s eye, you could imagine the long, sweeping branches of the paintings in the house of the rich man Rose married. In the dark of the night, on several occasions when you were not serving him or your sister, you would stand and trace the feeling of the canvas and the thick paint. 

Rose once told you that the leaves were a bright green, greener than you could ever imagine. 

_“Everything is green there,”_ she would say. _“We will be there soon.”_

She had been right. 

The crow puffed itself up, preening its feathers, and you leaned against the trunk. From your shoulder, the crow hopped to your bent knee. Its talons dug into the fabric of your long working boots, and it made some more soft noises, and continued to move around. More preening, you assumed. 

It bit your finger when you reached to smooth it back down, and you yanked your hand back. Okay, no petting with the cleaning. Got it. Picky crow. 

The sounds of the river soothed you into a lull. 

The notion of time passing, of the uncertain rhythm of the earth below you and the sky above, made you lose a little focus. The passage of hours always ticked on within your heart, like grains of sand in a bottomless bowl.

A fish jumped, a stump dragged the water around. The eddies streamed around a branch that’d grown down into the water, and the open air of the body of water smelled so fresh and clean in comparison to the city. 

When you were out beyond the boundaries of people, you felt most at home. 

It smelled most like the place of your birth. But at the same time, it smelt nothing like it at all. 

The forest sounds started back up around you. A hare dashed through the underbrush. A fox screamed in the night, and an owl gave a warning hoot. A lizard scuttled over your hand, stomach, and then down under the tree. For those few seconds, the crow on your knee froze, and made not a noise. 

“You can get something to eat, if you want,” you said to no one in particular. If it could have, you thought the crow might laugh at that. Either that, or give you a dirty look. Maybe it _was_ giving you a dirty look. Who knew? 

\----------

The sound of approaching footsteps woke you, sometime after dawn, just as the morning sun began to warm the air. There was a fur thrown over you, and you have no idea where it came from. 

On your shoulder, again, the crow roosted, face buried in its own feathers. The footsteps made you sit upright a little too fast, however. The bird fell clumsily down, making the most awkward noise imaginable as it tumbled to the leaves. 

“Oh. You’re awake,” a voice said. 

Foreign voice, foreign magic, you should have been alone out here, she said she would _protect_ you--

It made you leap to standing, that thought. Instinctively, you channeled magic into your eyes and feet. The world came into sharp existence, and your feet firmly planted to the dirt. Dropping into a defensive stance, you looked up at the source of the noise. 

Karkat looked a little taken aback as he raised his hands in defense.

“It’s just me,” he said.

Weariness was almost enough to muffle your knowledge of his awareness of your mortality, too. But with your eyes on, head pounding, and heart racing, it was hard to forget. Because like that, you could see the pity in his eyes. 

“It’s not safe to be out here alone,” he said, then, not waiting for a reply. 

You wanted to snap at him, too, then. 

Time to nip that in the bud before he kept doing it forever. 

“Sioban sent a crow to come and get me; she was concerned about you,” Karkat said, and you guessed that must have been the name of the spirit, _however_ Karkat knew that, or knew her, or _whatever_. But the next instant that he opened his mouth, you were on him. A hand shoved into his chest, filled with the force of all of your anger and magic, concentrated in a repulsing spell. 

After that, Karkat looked wary, actually. He could have killed you for the offense. But at least after you showed him your power, he knew he wouldn’t go down unscathed. 

“You know about my mortality, dragon,” you tell him. His face wrenched, and you did’t care why. Nothing could be your own. Not the spot, not your journey into the woods alone, nothing. Not even your dreams. 

The magic in your eyes pulsed, and you felt a sharp pain in the back of your head.

Karkat could clearly see a fluctuation in your energy, and he lifted a hand as if to touch you. 

“Stop!” you snapped, and he looked more clearly into your eyes. 

“Okay,” he said, and you winced at the blankness that crossed his face.

“You can either pity me and treat me as some weak mortal,” said you, finally, holding up a pulsar of force in your hand. It unraveled and wound up time simultaneously, and a great thundering noise shattered the air like lightning piercing the speed of sound. Birds lifted from their branches, and the river seemed to almost stop for a split second. “Or you can treat me as an equal, and not speak of it again.”

You knew Rose would never stop worrying over your age. It was in her to worry after you. But it didn’t have to come from everyone in your life. 

“Just one… just one friend,” you said, and you could feel your vision weaken once more. Karkat’s face blurred before you, and the pain in your head shot right into the front of your skull. “Just one who doesn’t treat me like that.” 

“Okay, just… just calm down, Dave,” Karkat said. Very calm, very even. 

Your magic was so thin that it took all of you to keep the crashing energy within your palm. It rippled the very air, hot and cold and deadly and filled with life, all at once. Your vision went away entirely. 

Before you knew what was happening, there was a hand over your eyes. A few cool scales, steeped with something that felt like life, and love, and _blood_ took the pain from you. 

The magic in your hand seeped back into the air, back into nothing. 

The crow cawed from the tree, above you. 

The forest was so quiet. 

“Please don’t treat me like that,” you asked of him, again, before your knees turned to mud. 

“You aren’t weak, Dave,” Karkat said. It sounded so sincere.   
“You are far from weak.”

A derisive snort came from between your lips, as you slumped back against the tree. You felt so drained, and ravenously hungry and thirsty. 

“I’m being truthful with you, Dave,” Karkat muttered, and the leaves crunched under one of his knees as he knelt to place another hand over your forehead. This time, it was warm. The tension in your shoulders left you. The crow came back down, and this time took up residence on your folded wrist. 

“You are not weak,” Karkat repeated. When would he get to the god-damned point? “But it is so sad to hear that your light, as bright as it is, will go out before mine.” 

That sentence made you feel... something.

Karkat pulled you forward, and put the fur around your shoulders. Only then did you realize how cold you were. Huh. That was… a lot of magic. For a bit, you could see everything like normal. 

“She was right,” you said. Your eyes burned, and you felt your nose itch. 

“Right about what?” Karkat asked. 

“Everything is so green here,” you told him. “Everything is beautiful, here.” 

Karkat snorted, and helped you to your feet. 

“She doesn’t mean badly by telling people about you,” Karkat said, after a few steps with him supporting half of your weight. “Even if it’s the wrong thing to do.” 

“I know,” you said right back. 

“Let’s get you some food,” Karkat said as he lifted you over the last of the huge tree’s roots. 

The crow remained at the tree as Karkat walked you along the path from the river.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! so im sorry it took me so long to get to this, this AU series has had me extremely stumped lately. But i felt like writing today, and got back to this one at least! i love yall and i hope youre having a good week! reminder: these chapters aren't being beta'd so they're a tiny bit rough, haha

**Author's Note:**

> hi i hope yall are doing well and enjoyed the chapter! the amount of chapters i write for this will hinge on how much i want to reveal. though there are... spoilers. so if you haven't read Gardenia and Peonies, i recommend it!!! haha love yall and happy weekend <3


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